Just in time to beat the voting deadline… ultra long distance runner Lizzy Hawker makes up our 10th and final look at National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year, 2013. Don’t forget to vote by January 16!

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You know that scene in the movie Forrest Gump where, after the girl leaves him, Forrest heads off for a run that takes him across the country about six times? Seemingly no limit to his endurance? That’s what I think of when I read about Lizzy Hawker. A petite British woman who didn’t run a professional race until she was 29 and entered NorthFace’s Ultra Marathon du Mont Blanc on a whim – and won it!

Some fish are born to swim, right?

In his excellent post for Nat Geo, Fitz Cahall paints the picture in all its grueling colors. 103 miles (168 km) with a cumulative 31,168 feet of uphill climb. As anyone who has run a regular marathon can tell you – this is quite an achievement. Lizzy has won the women’s title 5 out of the 6 times she’s run it.

Lizzy Hawker wins first place for her 5th time, at Northface’s Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. photo: Franck Oddoux.

Since finishing her PhD in oceanography, and her work with the British Antarctic Survey, Lizzy has concentrated on endurance running. She credits her success to a natural level of endurance and a deep love of the mountains. In fact, it seems like just being in the mountains is her primary motivation.

Perhaps even more impressive than the large, well organized UTMB, was Lizzy’s try at the Great Himalayan Trail, across Nepal, solo.

You have to realize that a trail like that – criss-crossed for thousands of years – doesn’t exactly come with trail markers. “There are lots of old hunting trails. The animals have worn parts [of it] as well. It’s very easy to get off the main trail. I was in really steep old-growth forest. I managed to lose a small bag that had the satellite phone and permits for the entire journey.”

Losing that bag meant the end to Lizzy’s trek. Without being able to make her daily sat-phone check in, she knew her friends would be calling out a rescue party.

Of course she’s planning on trying again. When you’re Lizzy Hawker, you don’t need a prize at the end of the road. You just need the trail, your shoes and the mountains. How pure is that?

“For me, moving fast in the mountains just comes natural.”

Lizzy Hawker loves to run in the mountains. Whether there’s a race or not!

When you grow up in a fishing village with a break like this one, it’s easy to see why you’d grow up passionate about the ocean. What we love about Ramon Navarro isn’t just that he’s an amazing big wave surfer. It’s that the ocean is his life.

The first thing I knew in life was the ocean and how to live with the ocean.

So it’s not surprising that when Ramon Navarro isn’t out wowing the surf world with massive barrel rides, he finds himself involved in local politics to protect the pristine coastline of Punta de Lobos against developers.

Ramon hopes to see this gem of coast added to Chile’s National Parks. But as many in Patagonia have learned, setting up a national park in Chile is not easy. [Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has used private funds to protect public land, read his story]. Of course, one visit to this corner of the planet would have you enrolled in these conservation projects too. Patagonia remains one of the last pristine wildernesses in the world.

But wait… we were talking surf. So here’s the “perfect barrel” that catapulted Ramon Navarro even higher into the ranks of surfing lore.

As I write this, we have only one week to vote for our favorite “Adventurer of the Year” at National Geographic. And the choices don’t get any easier with Jeremy Jones.

Jeremy Jones has done what few top athletes in their sport have ever done – walk away. After establishing himself as one of the pioneers of big mountain, big line snowboarding in the ‘90s and after making some 40 snowboarding films, and founding Jones Snowboards, Jeremy walked away from the world of fat sponsorships and heli-skiing to go off the grid. To take himself and his friends deep into the mountains for some of the purest boarding out there. Backcountry.

For those unfamiliar, backcountry snowboarding (or skiing) is really a combination of mountain climbing, winter camping, snowboarding and just plain survival. Grab your ropes, your ice axes and crampons, if you’re serious, you can have the most spectacular mountains in the world all to yourselves. But it’s work. And you better not screw up. Because there’s no ski patrol to haul your ass down to the hospital. There’s no cell phone reception or saint bernard dog with a cask of cognac. There’s just relentless cold and risk of avalanche that will bury your ass, making you one with the glacier.

Here’s the trailer for “FURTHER” Jones’ newest film about this brave new world.

Any guy who will reach the pinnacle of his sport and say, “what’s next?” Any guy who will climb 10 hours (and 9,000 ft) in the middle of the night to make a run at first light… any guy who is THIS determined to experience the mountains in their purest, most remote form – regardless of hardship – this is our kind of adventurer!

Jeremy Jones with his splitboard in Alaska. photo: Teton Gravity Research

In fact, adventurer is too timid a word for Jones. He’s really an explorer. What else can you call a man whose sole focus is discovering new lines, opening new territories, innovating new skills and new technology, like the splitboard, which can be skinned and worn like skis for climbing, then clipped back together for the run?

What else can you call a guy who isn’t satisfied with his own enjoyment of the mountains, but uses his success to rally supporters to put environmental pressure on Washington (Protect Our Winters)?

Jones is a man walking his talk. No b.s. No half measures. He loves the mountains, he loves to shred. He inspires, he innovates, he lives to lead. What else can you want for Adventurer of the Year?

The first time I saw Josh Dueck, he rolled onto the stage at the Banff Film Festival and the crowd shot to its feet. They had come to see the “Radical Reels” films, but clearly were more stoked at seeing him as their MC for the night. I could see why. Not only had Josh brought Canada a silver medal in the Vancouver Paralympic Games, but he had just become the first skier to ever land a back flip in a sit ski. Talk about unstoppable.

Since his paralyzing injury in 2004, Josh has gone on to have a bigger career than most able-bodied skiers could hope for:

Josh Dueck photo: Hannah Johnson

1st Place Mono Skier X (X-Games, Aspen 2010)

3rd Place Mono Skier X (X-Games, Aspen 2012)

1st Place Downhill, World Cup (Whistler 2009)

1st Place Downhill, World Championship (Korea, 2009)

1st Place Super G, World Cup (Panorama 2012)

The list goes on, but you get the idea. The guy is a powerhouse, he loves to shred. He lives to shred. He may have been dealt a really lousy card, but if anything, this has only powered him forward to become, not just a world champion, but a world class inspiration.

What’s so refreshing about Josh, when you read his blog or see him interviewed, is the clarity he shines on life and what really matters. This odyssey isn’t one he willingly undertook. To sever your spine at the beginning of your career would be enough to stop most guys cold. Period. Over. Retreat into self-pity, or worse. That’s not Josh. Not only did he become a better skier, he became a bigger person. Open, articulate, refreshingly honest. Take this excerpt from a recent trip to Colorado:

To summarize, I skied like crap. It was a rough stretch of getting my arse kicked by the mountain, myself and the other athletes. I could get into the details but it’s no more than a long list of complaints that equate to a poor outlook on the challenges presented. Leaving Colorado feeling quite discouraged I did my best to keep my head up and focus on the simple fact that I get to ski for a living and that’s pretty awesome. I trust that with some minor adjustments and a bit of hard work that the rest of the details will inevitably sort themselves. — from JoshDueck.com

The day Josh took his back flip onto an airbag on the slopes – his first real run on the ramp he would use – was the day he heard his close friend Sarah Burke had died of injuries sustained in Park City.

“We just got the phone call that Sarah had passed away. I just fell over. We were in a place that Sarah absolutely loved, and it was a good afternoon to be doing what we were doing. Instead of being afraid to hit the airbag, I said, I know exactly what Sarah would do. She loved to be afraid and overcome those challenges. There was no question. I said, “We’re doing this.” Her energy carried through what we were attempting to do that day.” – excerpt from Nat Geo interview.

To find gratitude where others find only adversity… might just be the rarest of qualities any of us can learn.

Personally, I’m not sure if Josh is a better skier or a better human. Whatever strength he’s tapped to lead himself through this new chapter in life is pretty damn amazing. He may not be superman, but he puts it out there. He lives life like a champion. Not because of his achievements, but because of his vulnerabilities. And his remarkable ability to look past them and say, “Yes, we’re doing this.”

I have been a fan of big kayaking expeditions since I first saw Rush Sturges’ “Africa Revolutions Tour” on youtube years ago. Loading up your kayak and setting sites on some of the wildest, most remote rivers of the world? Using whitewater as your excuse to see some of the more pristine corners and cultures on the planet? Now THAT’s an expedition.

Not being a kayaker myself and having all the water skill of a cement brick, I have never partaken in anything like this. But the more I read about Steve Fisher and his buddies, the more I want to.

Fisher has been called the world’s best kayaker in various magazines and, leading the only team of paddlers to ever run the Inga Rapids, it would be hard to argue this title. For those who don’t know, Nat Geo’s interview with Fisher lays it out pretty clearly. The Inga Rapids are a 50 mile stretch of the Congo River, with some 16 cataracts and where 1.6 million cubic feet of water blasts through a channel less than a mile wide. The resulting chaos has never before been survived. Fisher led the expedition with world class kayakers Rush Sturges, Tyler Brandt, and Ben Marr. Here’s the Red Bull Media teaser. The entire film runs 77 min.

Fisher grew up in rural South Africa, paddling rivers from the age of 6. By 21 he had become a full time kayaker and guide on the Zambezi, then off on a world tour, taking top prizes in at least seven major kayaking competitions. You might think leading the Inga project would be a crowning achievement since there are no bigger runs on the planet, but as Steve himself points out: “I try not to hang onto one single accomplishment… if you hang onto one item, like a world record or a title, then when someone betters you on that, what do you have? Nothing. I try to hang onto a well rounded list and to be an all-rounder.”

Steve Fisher in Africa. photo Desre Pickers, Red Bull Content PoolTo be honest, when I first saw video from the Inga Project, I watched with a pang of doubt. Red Bull got behind this project in a big way, which I have nothing against, because God bless those guys as sponsors. Still… one of the key reasons the team was able to navigate this wild ride was because they had a Red Bull helicopter overhead spotting for them. The major challenge of the Inga, Fisher points out, is that it’s too damn big to see what’s coming. You can get bounced out of jaw-breaking hole right into a massive whirlpool and… so long charlie. Having a helicopter overhead was the only way they got through it. Which begs the question – when you are claiming a “first descent” of an impossible rapids – what about the kayakers without a helicopter/spotter? Is it really a level playing field? Or should there be an asterisk on this one?

Truthfully, I don’t know. You could just as well challenge the use of oxygen to climb Everest and no one takes that away from Hillary. Sports evolve. Techniques are pioneered. This is what great explorers and competitors do. They figure out HOW to achieve something that’s never been achieved. And Fisher’s been doing this for years, pioneering more tricks than Shaun White in the half pipe. To watch this guy on the rapids is like watching a martial artist dance and pirouette his way through a battle. It’s pretty damn spectacular. As so is the humility with which he wears it. Can’t wait to see what he does next.

Shannon Galpin, founder Mountain2Mountain.org photo by Tony Di Zinno
Part 5 of our closer look at National Geographic’s candidates for “Adventurer of the Year” brings us to Shannon Galpin.

Anyone with the stones to call themselves an adventurer, will eventually smack into this idea of “heroism.” Hero is a word we throw around way too easily in our culture. We use it for sports figures. We use it for celebrities. We use it for soldiers who just do their job. And there is heroism in serving your country. But for me, even this pales in comparison to serving an ideal nobody asked you to serve. At great cost and great personal risk, for no better reason than you saw it had to be done.

Enter Shannon Galpin, a 38 year old mom and mountain biker from Colorado who decided one day that signing petitions wasn’t enough to change the world.

Video courtesy of MoveShake.org

It is impossible to tell the story of what she’s done without acknowledging the events that brought her there. Because – to paraphrase Shannon – where we were broken, we can be stronger than before. We need not be victims. Through telling our story, we become the catalyst for change.

So these are the events: At eighteen, heading home from work, Shannon was brutally attacked, raped, and left for dead. She told herself she would not live as a victim, but as you can imagine, this was no easy task. It took energy. It took focus.

Thirteen years later, her little sister was also attacked. And enough was enough. The year was 2006 and the country was deeply mired in war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Shannon got the idea to take her fight into the very teeth of the monster.

Afghanistan. A country rated the worst place in the world to be a woman. A country where women had no right to work or be educated. Had no right to love or to marry outside the family’s will. Where Afghan soldiers would throw acid in the faces of young girls for daring to attend school.

Out of the middle of Colorado, selling her own house to finance it, Shannon Galpin traveled into a war zone to say “no.” These women would no longer be your victims. She would encourage them. She would teach them to speak out. She would empower them to tell the stories they kept hidden. To use the crimes against them as evidence of social injustice.

Wow. In a country like that? With no rule of law and where violence against women is as common as swatting a donkey? And where – need we point out – foreigners are not safe… THAT, my friends, is heroism.

Bibi Aisha had nose and ears cut away for fleeing her abusive husband.

“Through the heartbreak of one, we plug into the many,” she says. Meaning that the problem of social injustice is easy to ignore. The story of two ten year old girls, who have acid thrown in their faces for attending school – is impossible to ignore.

In August 2010, Time Magazine ran the story of one of Shannon’s girls, Bibi Aisha, on its cover. Apologies for the graphic image, but like we said, the story of one person, a person who could be our sister, or our daughter is a lot harder to ignore. The brutality visited upon Afghan women took center stage, if only for a moment. And the world recoiled.

Mike Libecki’s first ascent of Greenland’s Ataatap tower, 4,610 feet, free solo.At first glance, Mike Libecki is exactly the kind of explorer I always wanted to be growing up. Passionate, buoyant, endlessly curious and willing to employ any skill, any sport, any amount of travel to get to the most remote corners of the earth. And I mean REMOTE.

As Fitz Cahall notes in his interview with Mike for Nat Geo, Mike has undertaken 39 expeditions so far. (Actually, he’s on number 40 in Antarctica as I write this) and very few of them look the same.

Some guys go for mountains. Some guys go for powder or rivers. Libecki goes for what everyone else has forgotten. Or probably never heard of. Or couldn’t find on a map if you paid them. Glaciers in Greenland? No problem. Jungle outcroppings in Borneo? He’s done that. Kite skiing in Afghanistan? Check. Climbing in Antarctica? 4 times. You get the picture. The man gets around.

And how do you not like a guy who brings along a different mask for each year in the Chinese Zodiac. And wears it for the every summit?

A look at his “Around the World” video (14 min) gives you a pretty good idea, not just of the roads he’s taken, but the ebullient personality he brings. There’s an exchange in there with some Mongol herdsmen which is classic. You show me your dance, I’ll show you my banjo. Honestly, if more Americans traveled this way – eager to learn, help, charm, and disarm – we’d have a lot more cred with the rest of the world. Check out more Libecki at MikeLibecki.com. And don’t forget to vote on Nat Geo’s blog.

It’s always fun to write about Felix Baumgartner. Probably because I get into so many arguments about him. People call him a daredevil, a nut, an adrenalin junkie, the Red Bull dude. Anything but a serious explorer. I wrote about him in October, just prior to his historic skydive from 128,000 feet (39,014m) on Oct. 14, 2012. A jump in which he also became the first human to break the sound barrier without a vehicle.

I watched the event live that morning, and although the Red Bull Stratos videos have been edited down to pure heroics, I can tell you there were a couple of minutes during the free fall, it did not look good. As he fell through the sound barrier (well over 800 mph) Felix was tumbling wildly out of control, arms and legs flailing. A hurricane will rip the roof off your house at 120 mph. A tornado will rip it off its foundation with winds at 300 mph. Nobody had any idea what 800 mph winds would do to the human body. I’ll be honest, when I saw that uncontrolled tumbling, I thought he was toast…

Obviously, we all know the ending. It was picture perfect. A man in a space suit soaring out of a cloudless sky, dropping to his knees in gratitude. Fists held high. It was awesome. But now he’s up for Adventurer of the Year and if you’re gonna vote for him, you probably want to know this wasn’t just a Red Bull media stunt. To me, it wasn’t. But maybe you need to see a little more about Felix to be convinced.

Felix is way more than some guy who pulled a stunt. He worked for 12 years to achieve what he did. Because he was so well monitored, we know all kinds of things about the human body under extreme G forces. We know NASA has at least one model to study for how to get humans back to earth, should their spacecraft fail. And for the 70 million+ people who have seen the jump, there’s a whole new generation of explorers who just got an eyeful of possibility!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when a guy does something this far out on the edge, we just don’t know its importance when it happens. But the willingness to GO that far is something we can all respect. Hope to meet him someday. Can’t wait to see what he does next.

One of the oldest sherpas in the Khumbu, Karma Tsering. photo by Renan Ozturk

As promised, we begin our look at National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year with Renan Ozturk. I have not met Renan, other than to shake his hand at his movie premiere in Telluride last year, but I am a big fan. Not only does he climb with the best, but his filmmaking skills rock. Haunting, evocative, intensely personal glimpses into the expeditions he and buddies go on.

Renan Ozturk, photo by Jimmy ChinIf you can, take a look at the film he and Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker made about their Return to Meru (also known as “The Shark’s Fin” for its crazy, bladed ascent into Himalayan mythology). Not only did these guys return after a grueling defeat just short of the summit, but Renan signed up for the return only six months after a near fatal skiing accident that fractured his neck, and left him almost immobilized. So we get two big comebacks in his movie. The team’s. And his. I can’t tell you which was more powerful. Both were huge. And are probably a good part of why Renan was nominated this year.

But to think of Renan as just a mountain climber, even a great one, is to miss the point of his chops as an artist. His awesome ability to translate shooting, climbing, painting into a visceral experience for the rest of us. Life – as Renan – isn’t necessarily heroic. But it’s always engaging.

Not to be overlooked, Renan’s paintings are wildly expressive. Part sherpa, part Van Gogh, awesome filmmaker and (apparently) unstoppable climber. What else could you want in an Adventurer of the Year?

Mike Libecki explores Greenland. photo: Keith LadzinskiEvery November, National Geographic unveils their Top Ten list of candidates for their Adventurer of the Year Award. Anyone can vote online and you have until Jan. 16th to do it.

This is not an easy choice. You don’t get on this list for doing anything mediocre. Or halfway. You get there for “remarkable achievements in exploration, conservation, humanitarianism, etc., blah-blah…” We call it kicking some proverbial ass in the adventure world!

What’s great about this list are the awesome stories and images that go along with it. Like me, you probably have no clue what most of these people have done. Trust me, it’s worth finding out.

So, in a first for Xpedition.TV, we’re going to take a look at every one of these awesome men and women. A few we’ve written about before (think: helium balloon & space capsule). One or two I’ve met in person. Others… I guess we’re just gonna find out.

Look for daily posts about each, although that’s probably ambitious. There’s so much to say about each of them! More to come…